Posts tagged Female at WOW Insider

Posts with tag female

Does my human female look psycho to you?

Posted Mar 28th 2008 4:20PM by David Bowers
Filed under: Human, Patches, Humor

Apparently Blizzard spent some time rebuilding all the player models for Patch 2.4 in order to increase performance. What exactly does this mean to us players who loves the way our characters look? Absolutely nothing. You won't notice any differences in the models at all -- except, that is, if you happen to play a human female. Then you might look deep into your characters eyes and notice a certain "Stepford-wife" look, like a "2000-yard stare," as if her "irises are popping out of her head."

Asariah noticed this and posted his concerns in the Bug Report Forum (did you know there was a Bug Report Forum? neat huh?). Hortus spotted this report and informed us that the human female was the only one of the multiple races to receive a minor alteration from this, and that "it was decided that this was an acceptable change." Apparently someone up there at Blizzard is a big fan of 2000-yard, iris-popping, stepford-wife eyes in women!

For my part, though, I have to get up really close to my human female character to notice the difference -- and then when I do it makes me giggle uncontrollably. It's really no worse, in my opinion, than all those glowy reflections you see in anime girls' eyes. And to be honest, human women have always been a bit vacant-looking in WoW; they're better than human men, of course, but still don't usually look like paragons of profound intelligence. At least they don't bounce up and down like night-elf girls do.

[Via World of Raids]

All the World's a Stage: If looks could kill

Posted Jan 13th 2008 5:55PM by David Bowers
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, RP, (Roleplaying) All the World's a Stage

All the World's a Stage is a column for inquisitive minds, playing with roles every Sunday evening.

The media usually portrays WoW as a "boy's game." That's not to say girls don't play too, of course -- just that the game is basically about qualities such as aggressiveness and violence, and our culture expects males to be interested in that sort of thing.

Whether such a designation is true or not, the "masculine equals violent" stereotype is very pervasive, and it is natural for many male players to begin the game with a powerful and intimidating character in mind. The player may imagine that his avatar is warm and kind-hearted inside, but outwardly, his character looks as though he could rip out your throat with a flick of his pinky finger.

But there are many men out there who don't like such exaggerated manliness in their characters, just as there are many women who don't want their character to look like a dainty barbie doll. Being a person isn't just about just one gender attribute, after all. Indeed, female characters in WoW can achieve a full range of human attributes in their appearance; they can look friendly and intelligent, yet lightning quick and deadly at the same time. However, the appearance of male characters is often so filled to the brim with "strength and honor" that there's not much room left for any other human quality.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: If looks could kill

All the World's a Stage: It's not just about sexy butts

Posted Oct 1st 2007 10:55PM by David Bowers
Filed under: Virtual selves, RP, (Roleplaying) All the World's a Stage

All the World's a Stage is a weekly column by David Bowers, investigating the explorative performance art of roleplaying in the World of Warcraft.

Roleplaying the opposite sex happens. It is alluring to some, and repulsive to others -- a lot of people do it, while a lot of other people very openly proclaim (as if they know these things) that anyone who does this weird, manipulative, deceitful, and so on.

People also tend to come up with various excuses for why they play a character of the opposite sex, as if they need to justify themselves according to their own gender's traditional expectations. Some men say, "if I'm going to have to stare at a characters butt for hours while I play, I'd rather it be a hot and sexy butt," while some women say, "I get all kinds of unwanted attention if I play a girl, and the only way I can get away from it is to play a boy." All that may be true in some cases, but it's hardly the whole story behind opposite-gender roleplaying.

First of all, let me just say it here and now: you have every right to create whatever character you want, particularly in an actual roleplaying environment, and particularly if you intend to be faithful to the character you're creating.

Continue reading All the World's a Stage: It's not just about sexy butts

Poll: More men play women than women play men

Posted Sep 26th 2007 8:30AM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard

Perhaps brought on by the news that a Chinese MMO wants to reveal gender bending gamers, Cary posted a pretty interesting poll over on the WoW LJ, asking readers what their gender is and what sex they play as on their main character. The general consensus seems to be that most people play as their own gender, but overwhelmingly, more women play as their own gender than men. The poll itself seems a little off to me, as it's really pointless to compare the percentages given, but by crunching the numbers a bit (and please remember how bad at math I am), I get that 40% of men who answered play the game as women, while only 11% of women who answered play the game as men. Here's more data on this, that we've covered before.

Very interesting. We've touched on the reasons for gender bending in game a few times before, and there are all kinds of reasons why people play as characters of the opposite sex, from staring at an attractive behind to garnering more money and attention (or less attention) from other players, to roleplaying a character.

But really, none of that matters too much-- it's just a game, and for whatever reason, people are welcome to play it as they please. A better question might be how you refer to the gender of other players. I've gotten in trouble a few times here by referring to players on the forums (including CMs, way back when I started) as one gender when it turns out they're actually another, so eventually I just decided to call it how I see it: if someone plays a female character I call them "her," and a male character gets called "him." For people playing a different gender, sure, it might come off a little strange. But it comes with the territory, I guess, of pretending to be someone else for a while.

Azerothians vs. Earthlings: Oh the Humanity!

Posted Jun 20th 2007 4:37PM by David Bowers
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves, Humor

Newcomers to Azeroth are met with a choice as to which race they should choose. Undoubtedly, the most immediately recognizable and familiar choice is that of the humans. But are the humans of Azeroth really just Azerothian versions of us Earthlings, or are they better understood as a distinct species of their own?

The most obvious difference at first glance is that in Azeroth, all men are blocky and all women are curvy. Aside from various facial traits, hair and skin color, humans don't vary from this standard mold. Even in advanced age, Azerothian women's breasts do not sag, nor do men's muscles lose their beefy bulkiness. Some Earthlings have disparagingly compared Azerothian men to gorillas for their tree-trunk arms and their "smashed-with-a-shovel" faces, but others point out that Azerothian humans have been hardened through great suffering. Wars with orcs, demons and undead have reduced their population from millions to mere hundreds of thousands, and so the weak humans of Azeroth have possibly been weeded out. So, while many Earthling humans may enjoy the comforts of working at a desk all day, then coming home to play at a desk too (i.e. via computer game), Azerothians, even old ones, have to keep themselves fit to fight off the various enemies encroaching on their lands, such as murloc flesheaters and forsaken undead. While this may explain the over-muscled arms of Azerothian males, it leaves the question of youthfully curved elderly women quite unanswered.

Continue reading Azerothians vs. Earthlings: Oh the Humanity!

AFK a sec guys -- wife aggro

Posted May 16th 2007 8:42AM by Amanda Rivera
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Virtual selves

When Ryan wrote in suggesting we write about the concept of "wife aggro," a collective roar erupted over here at WoW Insider. The resulting conversation was both stimulating and more than a little silly, and in the end I decided if we can discuss this topic so profusely amongst ourselves, our readers certainly would benefit from us writing on the topic.

A couple of weeks ago several people in our guild started using the phrase "wife aggro" or "girlfriend aggro" as explanations why they had to AFK or log out of the game entirely. Now, being of that oh-so-rare female gamer demographic, I really took exception to this phrase, but it wasn't until four days ago when I actually spoke up to my guildies about how I felt.

Continue reading AFK a sec guys -- wife aggro

Breakfast Topic: Gender in WoW

Posted Dec 31st 2006 8:00AM by Eliah Hecht
Filed under: Virtual selves, Breakfast topics, Features

We've written about gender before, and it's an interesting topic that confronts one more frequently and more dramatically in WoW than it does in other parts of life. Azeroth is a sociologist's dream in several ways; I'm not even a sociology buff and I'd love to see some data on player vs. character demographics.

Do you play primarily your own gender or the opposite gender from your own, or do you play both genders pretty equally? Personally, I'm male, but I mostly play female characters. My other two RL friends who play WoW are male and female, but they both play mainly female characters as well. Furthermore, why do you play the gender(s) you do, and do you find that you get treated differently depending on what gender character you are playing?

Phat Loot Phriday: Robes of Insight

Posted Dec 1st 2006 7:42PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Items, Economy, Features, Phat Loot Phriday

After today's discussion about looking good, I figured we'd go fashionable this week. Male cloth-wearers may complain about having to wear a dress from time to time, but when the girls put this one on, there aren't any complaints at all.

Name: Robes of Insight
Type: Epic Cloth Chest
Armor: 74
Abilities:

+25 Intellect, +15 Spirit
Use: Reduces the cost of your next spell cast within 15 seconds by up to 500 mana (basically a free cast). 15 minute cooldown.
Could be (and is considered by many players to be) the best looking "dress" in the game-- especially on human females. Hawt!

How to Get It: Unfortunately, beauty ain't cheap. This thing is an Epic World Drop, which means it drops randomly, at an extremely low drop rate, on almost any mob in the world, which means you're just as unlikely to get it while in a group as you are tooling around by yourself. Farming it is like searching for a miniature needle in a hayfield, so you're likely going to have to depend on luck to get it in a drop.

Or, more likely, you could just buy it. Most AHs, when they carry it, will have it at anywhere from 150g up to 400g (most average around 200-225g). It's only a level 47 item, however, which means that unless you're an alt, by the time you have the gold to buy it with, you probably won't need it anyway. But on the other hand, it is a really cool looking dress... How much would you pay to look like Leia in Empire?

Getting Rid of It: If you're not that fashion-minded or don't wear cloth and are lucky enough to find this, by all means, put it towards that epic mount, and drop it on the AH for mucho moola. A vendor will give you 1g, 25s, 66c for it when you're ready to start wearing the next season's fashions.

Update: And if you like the style but can't wait for the drop (and have a raid of 40 going into AQ), commenter Spyder points you to the Robes of the Guardian Saint, a drop from Fankriss in AQ40.

Draenei Female Dance Leaked

Posted Aug 30th 2006 7:49PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Machinima, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Expansions, Draenei

If you haven't seen it yet, here you go. Shake that thing, girl, but watch the hooves!

Is it just me, or does this one look... boring? Anyone have a source on where it's from yet? The male comes from that crazy Mehndi video, so I assume the female is equally Indian in origin.

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Does my human female look psycho to you?

All the World's a Stage: If looks could kill

All the World's a Stage: It's not just about sexy butts

Poll: More men play women than women play men

Azerothians vs. Earthlings: Oh the Humanity!

AFK a sec guys -- wife aggro

Breakfast Topic: Gender in WoW

Phat Loot Phriday: Robes of Insight

Draenei Female Dance Leaked

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